Soothing a city

Six days after a national tragedy, Notre Dame and Syracuse put on a show at Yankee Stadium.

Six days after a national tragedy, Notre Dame and Syracuse put on a show at Yankee Stadium.

July 16, 2008|By JEFF CARROLL Tribune Staff Writer

In late November of 1961, University of Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh traveled to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with United States President John F. Kennedy.

It was certainly not the first time that the university's administration had crossed paths with the family of the first Catholic to inhabit the White House.

Joe Kennedy, JFK's father and the former United States ambassador to Great Britain, once called former Notre Dame President John J. Cavanaugh his "closest friend in the entire priesthood in the United States." When JFK needed help navigating the tricky "Catholic Question" that dogged his campaign in 1960, it was Cavanaugh who directed the Kennedys to some of the keenest Catholic thinkers of the day.

A decade earlier, in 1950 at age 32, then-U.S. Congressman Kennedy delivered Notre Dame's January commencement address and was given an honorary Notre Dame law degree. His "boyish face," a newspaper account of the day reported, "made him look more like the valedictorian than the commencement's main speaker."

Finally, as president, JFK had met several times in private with Hesburgh, a fierce civil rights advocate and activist. Some of those meetings were tense. Not this one, though.

Hesburgh had traveled to D.C. not to push policy, but to award Kennedy the Laetare Medal, given annually by the university to a distinguished American Catholic layperson.

Kennedy, however, had something else on his mind.

Is Notre Dame, the concerned president asked, going to have to forfeit its most recent victory?

Days before, the Irish had defeated Syracuse in very controversial fashion at Notre Dame Stadium. In the days that followed, Syracuse administrators had called vociferously for the game's result to be overturned. "No," Hesburgh assured the commander-in-chief. "We won."

'Nobody wanted to play'

Two years later to the day, a Notre Dame football team that had compiled a record of just two wins to go against six losses nonetheless felt optimistic about the task immediately before it. After practice, the Irish would board a plane and fly to Iowa City, Iowa, for a game against the University of Iowa.

This, Notre Dame's players felt, was an opportunity to pick up a victory on the road and, for the players planning to return in 1964, to begin building momentum toward the next year. The Hawkeyes, after all, had seen better times, as well, enduring a three-game midseason losing streak. The date was Nov. 22, 1963.

After the trip to Iowa, there would be one more game, a visit to New York City to play Syracuse. And if you couldnÂ?t get motivated for a game in Yankee Stadium, well, there was never much hope for you to begin with.

Practice ended, and Notre DameÂ?s players began making the walk from Cartier Field, on the southeast corner of campus, to Notre Dame Stadium, just a short distance to the west. One group, ahead of the others, was halted when a car pulled up in front of them. Out popped Don Lawrence, an assistant coach who was returning from an errand associated with the teamÂ?s travel plans.

Lawrence had horrible news to share. President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, his motorcade fired upon as it rolled through the city. By the time the team made it to the stadium, the news had trickled to most of the players, and interim head coach Hugh Devore made the official announcement in the locker room.

As Notre DameÂ?s players gathered at South Bend Airport for their flight to Iowa City, the presidentÂ?s condition was suddenly of far greater concern than their upcoming opponent. As they waited to board, players were glued to television sets relaying the latest news, its tone growing grimmer by the minute. Talk on the flight was not of offense and defense or scouting reports, but of the fate of the president in Dallas.

Â?Nobody wanted to play the game,Â? remembers Ken Meglicic, a lineman on the Â?63 Irish. Â?A lot of people on the team even questioned why we were going out there.Â?

By the time the players arrived in Iowa, what they had merely suspected before they had taken off had been confirmed Â? the nationÂ?s first Catholic president was dead.

That evening, players met with their position groups at their modest motel. Meanwhile, officials from both universities gathered to discuss what to do about the next day. The same question was causing considerable angst throughout the country. Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty called for his teamÂ?s game against Illinois, which would determine the Big Ten championship, to go on, saying it would be Â?a moving tributeÂ? to the fallen president. Some time on Friday evening, Michigan State, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio State released a joint statement that the games would be played in Â?the best national interest and tradition.Â?

Notre DameÂ?s players crawled under the covers that night thinking the same awaited them Â? that they would have to go out on Saturday afternoon, less than twenty-four hours after the death of a president with strong ties to their university and its faith, and play an essentially meaningless football game.

Some time after midnight, they were awakened in their rooms by calls from the coaching staff. The game would not be played after all. The next morning, granted a night to sleep on it, the Big Ten schools decided to do the same, postponing the contests.

Although the game against the Hawkeyes had been canceled in the wee hours of the morning, the Irish still attended their traditional game-day mass on Saturday morning. They visited a small church in the Iowa City area, the tiny chapel built into raised ground and requiring visitors to scale two flights of stairs to reach the entrance.

The priest presiding over the Iowa City mass pondered two questions during his sermon: How could this happen? Why did it happen?

He didnÂ?t, however, pretend to have any answers.

Â?I can remember,Â? says Meglicic, Â?the priest distinctly saying, Â?This is a tragedy that has happened and itÂ?s in GodÂ?s hands. We canÂ?t understand why God does certain things, but we have to accept this for what it is and continue on.Â?Â?

As the Notre Dame players exited the building down the same two flights of stairs they had climbed about an hour prior, a wire service photographer snapped their photo. The shot ran in newspapers around the country, just one more addition to a bulging scrapbook of a nation in mourning.

Back to action

Notre Dame returned to practice on Monday. There was one game yet to be played Â? the grudge match against Syracuse at Yankee Stadium.

Notre DameÂ?s opponent had circled this date on the calendar two years before. In the last meeting between the teams, late in the 1961 season, Notre Dame had triumphed, but not without considerable controversy.

As time had expired on Nov. 18, 1961, Syracuse clinging to a 15-14 lead, ND place kicker Joe Perkowski missed badly on a 46-yard field goal attempt. But the Irish were given new life when a Syracuse defender plowed into Perkowski, drawing a penalty. The ND kicker didnÂ?t miss his second chance. Due to the rules governing game endings at the time, Syracuse officials felt the victory should have belonged to them.

When they arrived in New York City two years later for the rematch, Irish players, many of them from small Midwest towns, marveled at the wonders surrounding them. The players stayed at the famous Waldorf-Astoria hotel, staring wide-eyed out of their windows at the action below.

On Saturday morning, the team attended mass at famed St. PatrickÂ?s Cathedral. Six days earlier, the same building had filled up quickly as word of the attempt on KennedyÂ?s life had broken on television. That afternoon, around 2 p.m., six priests knelt at the front of the building, near the altar, and prayed for the president. A half-hour later, Bishop Joseph Flannelly broke the silence and shared the news no one had wanted to hear.

Â?May God,Â? he said of the now-deceased president, Â?have mercy on his soul.Â?

As sobs and wailing broke out around the cathedral, Flannelly began an ancient prayer for the dead. By nightfall, 20,000 New Yorkers had streamed through the cathedral, 7,000 of them squeezing in for the 5 p.m. service.

After Thanksgiving mass six days later, the Irish loaded onto their bus and headed to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

In the previous century, millions of Irish-Catholics had flooded AmericaÂ?s borders, an enormous percentage of them settling in the East Coast cities of Boston and New York. Now, thousands of their descendents poured through the gates at Yankee Stadium. Hundreds more milled about outside, waiting for the arrival of the Notre Dame football teamÂ?s bus.

Â?There were a good number of people Â? mothers, fathers, daughters, sons,Â? recalls Meglicic. Â?You saw older men. You saw older women. You saw kids.Â?

Â?They were all around,Â? says Tom Goberville, another member of that Notre Dame team. Â?And that was typical.Â?

What wasnÂ?t typical was what the city had been through over the past few days. Hours after the assassination of the president, the famously brilliant marquees of Times Square in Manhattan had been dimmed, the night clubs and theaters closed for the evening. The Fifth Avenue Association had ordered all Christmas lights turned off in the windows of the streetÂ?s famous department stores. At Saks, perhaps the most famous of them all, a photo of JFK was set on a chair and surrounded by red roses.

The Bronx, home of Yankee Stadium, was at the time home to a large Irish population. The grief there was particularly accute.

Â?Our president traveled to practically every country in the world and was safe,Â? lamented Max Schechter, a newsstand owner. Â?ItÂ?s a disgrace.Â?

Â?I would do anything to bring him back,Â? said Anne Nightingale, another resident.

Now, as they gathered to greet the Notre Dame bus, many of the same people who had been so grief-stricken less than a week before held up joyous hand-made signs: Â?Go Irish.Â? Â?Beat Syracuse.Â? Â?We Love You, Notre Dame.Â?

It was good to smile again.

Â?Some kind of holy templeÂ?

Notre DameÂ?s players didnÂ?t enter Yankee Stadium until the afternoon they were to play there. Many were blown away by its famous features, including the 296-foot short porch in right field, and the center-field monuments that were still very much in play during baseball season. Backup junior quarterback John Huarte was particularly blown away. His father Joe, who played minor-league baseball for seven seasons, had played two games on a team with Yankee greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig on a California winter exhibition tour.

Â?I felt like I was walking into some kind of holy temple, like I was in the Coliseum in Rome,Â? Huarte says today. Â?You feel your feet on the grass and on the soil and you think, Â?IÂ?m in sports heaven.Â? I remember the sweeping, sweeping sensation that, Â?My God. IÂ?m here.Â? Â?

For most of the afternoon, the Irish were severely outplayed by the Orange. NDÂ?s Dan McGinn punted seven times, Syracuse just once. For the game, Syracuse would pile up 386 yards of total offense, the Irish just 174. The Irish had had three passes intercepted, the Orange none.

And yet, as the game clock ticked below four minutes, ND clung precariously to a 7-6 advantage, thanks largely to two stops deep in its own territory and a failed Syracuse extra point kick. Â?Even though we were unorganized,Â? says Norm Nicola, Notre DameÂ?s center in 1963, Â?and the coaching, in my estimation, was poor, there must have been something about the talentÂ? that kept the Irish in the game against a seemingly superior opponent.

Syracuse drove the ball to the Notre Dame 35, and Orange quaerterback Rich King dropped back to pass. Within moments, Goberville, NDÂ?s right defensive end, had him in his sights.

Just as the Irish defender plowed into the QB, however, King let go of the ball. The wobbler hung in the air briefly before landing in the hands of Syracuse receiver Mike Koski at the 20-yard line.

Koski ran the rest of the way in, crossing the goal line with what would turn out to be the winning touchdown with 3:28 remaining.

Â?They had a picture of me in the New York Times,Â? Goberville recalls of the 14-7 defeat. Â?I was dragging down the quarterback as he threw the ball, and of course the ball was caught for a touchdown. ThatÂ?s my vivid memory Â? dragging down the quarterback, and him just getting the ball away.Â?

While KennedyÂ?s death would send the United States hurtling head first into perhaps its most turbulent decade since the Civil War, things would soon get much better for the struggling Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Interim coach Devore was let go after the season, replaced by NorthwesternÂ?s Ara Parseghian. A year after finishing 2-7, Notre Dame remained unbeaten and in the national title driverÂ?s seat until the final 93 seconds of the final game of the 1964 season.

But 1963 was not a season played for naught. Forty-five years later, Yankee Stadium is set to be demolished after the current baseball season is over. But for those Notre Dame players who did their small part to help soothe a hurting city and nation, its memory will live on.

Â?ThereÂ?s something about death,Â? Meglicic says today. Â?You canÂ?t argue it. ItÂ?s final. I think there was the realization that our president, our first Irish-Catholic president, was gone. But that, hey, weÂ?ve got to move on from here.